As local officials line up behind the transportation sales tax referendum, or T-SPLOST, I continue to doubt the public will join the parade.

The referendum, on July 31 ballots, will allow voters across the state to approve an additional 1-percent sales tax, with the money going to transportation projects.

Some folks have attacked lawmakers for merely putting the issue on the ballot, but I certainly don’t want to complain when voters are given a direct say in their own taxation. Surely none of the opponents would prefer to not be allowed to vote?

Those who plan to attend Thursday’s Columbia County Chamber of Commerce Post-Legislative Breakfast will be able to pick state Sen. Jesse Stone out of the crowd. If he’s heard the news, Stone will be the one with the wall-to-wall grin.

Word has it that a potentially strong challenger to Stone, Robert Buchwitz, apparently has decided not to run for the state Senate seat after all.

During our community’s ongoing discussion about underage drinking and the occasional arrests that result, I recently noted that a high school teacher was asking her students to also sound off on the topic.

In response to a couple of my columns regarding the publication of the names of students cited as minors in possession of alcohol, Lakeside High School senior English teacher Kim Hinner assigned her students to write an essay about whether the paper should print those names and post them in our digital editions.

NOTE: Corrected information below. The original column included the number of donors according to the Federal Elections Commission site, but the FEC link directed to the wrong reporting period and yielded an outdated number. That paragraph of the column has been deleted.

Money is the mother’s milk of politics, they say.

If so, the District 12 congressional candidates are putting the squeeze on donors.

When I first heard the news April 10 that Columbia County Elections Director Debbie Marshall was in the hospital where she had just undergone emergency surgery for a brain tumor, the information at the time led me to believe she wouldn’t live through the night.

My heart sank. Delivering the news to my colleagues was even more painful as I watched the information suck all the breath out of the room.

No more. We won’t. Society as a whole doesn’t learn lessons. When someone does something and screws up, perhaps that person learns not to repeat that specific action again. But it’s obvious that pretty much no one else inclined to do the same thing is in any way deterred from trying it themselves.

A year and a half ago, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue triumphantly toured Georgia to brag about having improved the state’s graduation rate.

Not even a Russian circus contortionist could accomplish such protracted back-patting. Perdue claimed in visits to several schools that the graduation rate, since he took over the governor’s mansion from former Gov. Roy Barnes, had increased 17 percentage points.

Like me, you probably are still a little agog at the idea of a guy named Bubba, who drives a replica of the Confederate Battle Flag-emblazoned General Lee, winning the green jacket at the Augusta National.

It’s like golf’s version of the Beverly Hillbillies.

Still, when the poobahs of golf talk about growing the sport, they don’t just mean inner city outreach to minority groups. They’re also talking about attracting the Bubbas of the world.

Have we, as a society, completely given up on patience? Are we so intent on instant gratification that we can no longer wait for the slow turns of the wheels of justice? Are we inclined to do away with trials altogether, and replace them with lynchings and witch hunts?

Based on recent events, that certainly seems to be so. Exhibit A is the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Cops and officials typically are slow and deliberative. They have to be: Things they say and do can ruin a criminal case.